8:00 p.m. Sunday night. The kids are all coming off their chores and each is on to his or her current respective obsession.
Exile
It takes your mind again
Charlie is on the piano. He likes songs from the video game Portal. The music is surprisingly good for a video game. I know that comment dates me. But the haunting Exile Vilify is a long way from the electronic boop of Pong or Breakout. He started playing a year ago when we brought the piano into the house. He wants to play as well as Nadia, who has been playing for six years with three years of formal instruction.
Exile
It takes your mind again
Nadia is finishing up her Francis Parker high school application. She really wants Mater Dei, but there is not enough money for all the kids to go to private high school. She knows this. She also knows that there is college money set aside and growing. She might be able to talk us into betting her post-secondary savings on her secondary education, but… only if she can figure out a way to pay for half herself. That means a scholarship. At least at the dean level, if not the presidential level. That means at least 95% percentile on the Catholic school entrance exam. Higher than that on the Parker standardized test.
You’ve got sucker’s luck
Have you given up?
Does it feel like a trial?
Does it trouble your mind
The way you trouble mine?
Sofia is drawing a timeline of the French Revolution. It won’t be as good as Charlie’s. Charlie is more creative. His timeline is funny (it’s got a picture of a cake on the day of Marie Antoinette’s beheading). The two will get the same credit for the project, but Sofia will get a better grade in the class. She knows that she works harder and gets more done than Charlie. She knows that life is project based, and that if she tries, she will succeed. She is more competitive than Charlie. Charlie will be lucky to work for her one day.
Exile
It takes your mind again
Exile
It takes your mind again
Sam is reading about baseball stats. He wants to rent Money Ball, but it’s too late for a movie. He is eight years-old, and he knows more about sports – the science and art of sports – than most kids twice his age. He is long and lean and athletic. He wants to play baseball. At Stanford. I believe he can. But I know that if we keep him focused on meeting the Stanford academic standards, he can go anywhere he wants, even if he sucks at baseball.
Well, you lived so much
Have you given up?
Does it feel like a trial?
Does it trouble your mind
The way you trouble mine?
Evie is finally taking to the big sister role. For a time, she wouldn’t respond much when the babies rolled up on her. Katia would reach up and hug Evie; Evie would stand stiff. As she watched Nadia as a big sister, Evie started to imitate her.
Does it feel like a trial?
No, you’re thinking too fast
You’re like marbles on glass
Katia and Mateo will hurt me tonight. One will want to fly on my feet, or sit under my wing as we read Goodnight Moon or I Love You Forever, “My turn! My Turn!”
Vilify
Don’t even try
Vilify
Don’t even try
Claudia is lying next to me. We will be up and at it again in about ten hours. We hear the William Tell Overture playing in our heads from the minute we get out of the shower in the morning until we put our heads down at night. It will be competition all day. And we will miss it all when it is over.
You’ve got sucker’s luck
Have you given up?
Does it feel like a trial?
Does it trouble your mind
The way you trouble mine?
Last week was a study in group dynamics at work. The clients were in town, and boy were they mad. Each division came with its own requirements, it’s own senior officer, it’s own political objectives. The conference was a Stratego board, and God save the player who didn’t surround his general with plenty of colonels and majors.
Does it feel like a trial?
Did you fall for the same
Empty answers again?
There is no competition at my internship. It’s the one place where I can relax and absorb the experience and wisdom of a man who has nothing left to gain and nothing left to lose. But in two weeks, it’s off to Washington DC for an air & space law conference. My competitors will be there. So will the many lifetimes’ challenge of building the next segment in the arc of aviation history. I pray that I can compete. I pray that I can contribute.
Vilify
Don’t even try
Vilify
Don’t even try
Vilify
Don’t even try
Vilify
Don’t even try








